TsarVul

Be that as it may, we know that the majority of readers wouldn't read past the title. Knowing this, NewsWeek still decided to not include the name of the anti-trump podcast which dethroned Joe Rogan's podcast. I think this is the bias that they are referring to.

Do y'all read the articles before commenting?

Underlining the difficulty Europe could have in summoning a united response, some member states, including Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Romania, said they were unhappy that the Paris meeting was not a full EU summit.

“On a symbolic level, the organisers of the Paris summit show to the world that even within the EU, not all states are treated equally,” Slovenia’s pro-European president, Nataša Pirc Musar, said in a statement.

I'm what the culture's feeling. I just speak on it because we've been eating this shit for so long, but no one seems to notice and no one seems to care.

I just invited you (well, presumably, the Romanian government) to do that. And also mentioned how that’s kind of a foot in the mouth moment:

I can't disprove that I'm part of the Romanian government without revealing personally identifiable information. This is called arguing in bad faith and violates the rules of this community. Read the tab on your right. Furthermore, this is an attack on my character, not my argument.

You can’t decided on a “what” question, only on a concrete proposal. A plan. Can you field such a thing? Do you have it somewhere in a drawer? Why have a prominent, high-stakes summit if there’s nothing to decide. Press will be there, expectations high, results are expected. So make sure you can deliver results. Things must be hashed out beforehand using the usual diplomatic channels.

You are speaking nonsense. If we had to have a plan precooked before we could be invited, what's the point of the brainstorming session? Did all those 8 countries have a fucking plan too?

Do you want UK boots next to EU boots on Ukrainian ground? Then include the UK. It can’t be a EU summit because the UK is included. It must be done before the EU thing so we know what the UK is ok with, what not, what its whole idea of the thing is. Outside perception wise, this summit (as opposed to diplomats having a zoom call) is about signalling: The UK is in the fray.

If it's just about signaling that the UK is in the fray, why invite a bunch of EU members to the backdoor meeting? We would have seen each other in the regularly scheduled summit, right?

Oh. Good one. But the reason is simple: Because Turkey is a giant PITA both-sides’ing the whole thing. You’ll never get a firm stance out of them, for the simple reason that they don’t do firm stances. They juggle. “Zero problems with any neighbour to bring about the justice that Allah commanded” and they do consider Russia a neighbour.

They consider Russia a client, not a neighbour. Much like anyone else who is willing to dish out some money. I'm not saying they're morally correct. I'm saying that they are strategically relevant and yet were not invited.

Not terribly relevant right now, no. It’s not like Turkey wouldn’t be selling them… or that Ukraine didn’t, by now, have actually equally capable to superior drone tech themselves.

We're brainstorming, right? If America isn't selling drones anymore, gotta get 'em from somewhere. You're just arrogantly writing off a supplier.

No you’re a drunken land bridge to Greece with a language without grammatical exceptions, because for there to be exceptions there would have to be rules in the first place. If you want to be useful right now, yes, do summit with EU neighbours and Moldova and non-EU Balkans, then bring that to the EU table as France will bring the UK’s stance to the table.

Your overt bigotry aside, I bring forth to you again the question, if it's just about signaling that the UK is in the fray, why invite a bunch of EU members to the backdoor meeting? Much less ignore a bunch of other EU members.

OK so at this point you have sufficiently demonstrated my point. It was never about strategic relevance, because then Romania, Bulgaria and Greece would have been invited. If it was about being in the EU, then they wouldn't have invited the UK. If it was about military might, they would have invited Turkey. What I can only surmise from here on is the fact that we in Eastern Europe were never part of the equation. We are only here as a buffer. They could have invited our reps just for show, but they couldn't be assed to do that.

Damn, I forgot about the teaching aspect of programming. Must be hard. I can't blame students for taking shortcuts when they're almost assuredly swamped with other classwork and sleep-deprived, but still. This is where my defeatist comment comes in, because I genuinely think LLMs are here to stay. Like autocomplete, but dumber. Just gotta have students recognize when ChatGPT hallucinates solutions, I guess.

OK if they're a dime a dozen, then why not drop a dime and call a god damn EU summit? The agenda is pretty fucking clear, no? What are we doing about Ukraine? Why leave us in the cold? The fact that the UK is invited but Eastern EU isn't is so fucking insane. Actually, let's go a step further. Why wasn't Turkey invited? It's not EU and Erdogan is a piece of shit, sure, but I'm betting those Bayraktar drones would prove pretty useful during wartime, no? Add to that the fact that it also shares the Black Sea with Ukraine. Really ask yourself the question: What was the criteria for an invitation? The UK was invited so it's not about being in the EU. All of Eastern EU + Turkey wasn't invited, so it must not be about military might and strategic relevance. So what are the criteria?

I've said it once, I'll say it again: If you want a united EU, then stop treating us as if we're just a buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia. Enough is enough.

Be that as it may, it's way out in Western Europe. The question was whether those countries have military offerings. The answer is yes, by virtue of proximity. Furthermore the Hellenic Army is significantly larger and the combined weapons manufacturing industry of the Balkans is nothing to scoff at. It just boils down to the fact that if Ukraine falls, we in Eastern Europe are next, but no one fucking gives a shit. Cannon fodder for the West.

Aight sick, so why invite anyone? We're all NATO in the EU, right? Just have Macron, Antonio Costa, Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte in the room.

Poland is officially considered Central Europe, but sure, why play semantics? Let's call it Eastern Europe. This would be an even better reason to invite all other Eastern Europe reps. Why just invite one, right?

As far as I can surmise from the article, no. No one else was even invited.

Does Spain? Or are they just bringing the fucking paella for the meeting?

Look up the size of the Hellenic Army. Notice that Romania borders with Ukraine. Notice that Bulgaria and Romania share the Black Sea with it.

The whole world cries for a united EU and yet we never get a seat at the table. Sorry for being annoyed by the hypocrisy a little.

Look, ultimately the problem is the same as it has always been: juniors doing junior shit. There's just more of it going on. If you're hiring one, you put a senior on them ready to extinguish fires. A good review process is a must.

Now that I think about it, there was this one time the same young'un I was talking about tried to commit this insane subroutine that was basically resizing a vector in the most roundabout way imaginable. Probably would have worked, but you can also just use the resize method, y'know? In retrospect, that was probably some Copilot bullshit, but because we have a review process in place, it was never an issue.

I'm a little defeatist about it. I saw with my own 3 eyes how a junior asked ChatGPT how to insert something into an std::unordered_map. I tell them about cppreference. The little shit tells me "Sorry unc, ChatGPT is objectively more efficient". I almost blew a fucking gasket, mainly cuz I'm not that god damn old. I don't care how much you try to convince me that LLMs are efficient, there is no shot they are more efficient than opening a static page with all the info you would ever need. Not even considering energy efficiency. Utility aside, the damage we have dealt to developing minds is irreversible. We have convinced them that thought is optional. This is gonna bite us in the ass. Hard.